PONTIAC’S 1960 ENCORE

One of the great challenges of making cars is that you have to make key decisions about future models without knowing how well the current models are going to do in the marketplace. Had Knudsen and Bill Mitchell, who succeeded Harley Earl as VP of Styling in December 1958, known how well the 1959 Pontiac would be received, they probably would have carried over more of its design themes into 1960. However, design of the 1960 cars was mostly complete by the time the ’59s went on sale.

The 1960 Pontiac’s new grille was originally intended to evoke the transmission bulge of the Miller FWD Special Indy racers of the twenties, although the resemblance is hard to see in the finished product. All 1960 Pontiacs had the 389 cu. in. (6,372 cc) V8 — which Pontiac advertising dubbed “Tempest 420” — in several different states of tune. The V8 abandoned its reverse-flow cooling this year, although GM later revived the feature for the LT1 and LT4 engines of the 1990s.

All of GM’s 1960 cars were toned down considerably from their dizzy 1959 heights. The basic B-body shell, all-new for 1959, was carried over, but with far less glitz. The 1960 Pontiac lost its fins, substituting comparatively subdued “rocket exhaust” taillights, and had a completely new front-end theme, abandoning the 1959 Pontiac’s twin grille. The styling staff was generally unhappy about that change, feeling the twin grille gave Pontiac immediate visual identification, but Bill Mitchell was enamored of the new design and his word was law.

Mechanically, the 1960 Pontiacs were changed mostly in detail. The V8 abandoned its reverse-flow cooling system, which had created problems with excessive oil temperatures in high-performance use, while the Hydra-Matic transmission got a redesigned case that enabled a lower driveline. A Borg-Warner T-10 four-speed manual transmission was now optional, although only 722 were sold. The 1960 model year also saw the debut of the first high-performance Super-Duty engines, initially as a dealer-installed option.

This 1960 Pontiac Catalina Sport Coupe has been lowered; it was originally 54.2 inches (1,377 mm) high — low, but not quite this low. Pontiac retained its cruciform frame and trailing-arm rear suspension in 1960, but the disastrous air suspension was gone. Note the Pontiac emblem in the center of the tail, beneath the T in “PONTIAC,” which conceals the fuel filler.

Pontiac did well in competition in 1960, scoring seven NASCAR victories. Even when Pontiacs didn’t win, they were frequently the fastest cars on the track, with lap speeds of more than 150 mph (241 km/h). In September, Pontiac ad man Jim Wangers also won the NHRA’s Top Stock Eliminator title driving a heavily modified Catalina prepared by Royal Pontiac. Racer Mickey Thompson, meanwhile, tried for a new land-speed record at Bonneville with the Pontiac-powered Challenger.

Pontiac sales were up slightly for the 1960 model year, but market share slipped a bit, although it remained above 6%. Even though the economy was on the mend, many buyers remained wary of the bulk and ostentation of Big Three cars. AMC’s compact Rambler line outpaced Pontiac by around 25,000 units, claiming fourth place in total overall sales.

Pontiac’s distinctive eight-lug alloy wheels first became optional in 1960. Made by Kelsey-Hayes, the aluminum wheels have integral brake drums, providing much better brake cooling than the standard wheels and iron brakes. The eight-lug wheels were relatively expensive (around $125), but they greatly improved stopping power and they’re sought after by modern collectors.

GM’S FIRST DOWNSIZING

GM’s corporate management had recognized that trend during the recession, and dictated a new, slightly smaller B-body for the 1961 model year. As a result, the 1961 Pontiacs were about 4 inches (101 mm) shorter and 2.5 inches (64 mm) narrower than the 1960s while the wheelbase of the low-line models was trimmed from 122 to 119 inches (3,099 to 3,023 mm), shedding up to 165 lb (75 kg) in the process. Their track width also shrank by 1.5 inches (38 mm), to 62.5 inches (1,588 mm), although Pontiac continued to use the “Wide Track” slogan in its advertising.

Joe Schemansky and Jack Humbert, who replaced Schemansky as chief Pontiac stylist in March 1959, wasted little time in reviving the split-grille theme, which Pontiac would use in various forms until the division’s demise in 2009. Except for the rocket-like side spears, exterior trim was considerably more subdued than before. During Harley Earl’s tenure, stylists had often had to add extra brightwork to satisfy the tastes of their boss, but Bill Mitchell favored cleaner, crisper shapes. Another welcome change was the abandonment of the exaggerated wraparound windshields that Earl had favored, with their obtrusive dogleg A-pillars.

The 1961 Pontiac Star Chief and Bonneville retained the older dual-coupling, four-speed Hydra-Matic transmission, but Catalinas and Venturas had the new Roto Hydra-Matic, a scaled-down three-speed version of the H-M with a straight-blade torque converter rather than a plain fluid coupling. Roto Hydra-Matic was neither as efficient nor as reliable as the older transmission, but was cheaper to build. Both it and the four-speed H-M were dropped in 1965 in favor of the new and far more efficient Turbo Hydra-Matic 400.

In retrospect, the 1961 full-size Pontiacs look like a tasteful, well-considered refinement of Pontiac’s successful 1959 themes. At the time, Bunkie Knudsen was not thrilled with them or with the smaller body, which put the Catalina and Ventura on the same wheelbase as the 1961 Chevrolet. That move also didn’t sit well with the sales staff, who understood all too well how tenuous and ephemeral the line between Pontiac and Chevrolet could be. Knudsen got permission to stretch the Catalina and Ventura to a 120-inch (3,048mm) wheelbase for 1962, restoring Pontiac’s slight psychological edge, but he was very uneasy about 1961.

As Knudsen feared, Pontiac sales were down more than 55,000 units for the 1961 model year. The entire industry was down almost 20%, however, so Pontiac actually gained a bit of market share despite the underwhelming debut of the new “rope-drive” Tempest compact. The Tempest sold just under 101,000 units in 1961, less than Knudsen had hoped, but it kept the year from becoming a rout. Pontiac did better in NASCAR competition. Although Chevrolet claimed the 1961 Manufacturers’ Championship on points, Pontiac won 30 races to Chevrolet’s 11, including an impressive 1-2-3 finish at the Daytona 500.

The 1961 Pontiacs were far cleaner than their immediate predecessors and had crisp lines and fewer gimmicks. The Bonneville was 210 inches (5,334 mm) long, 10.7 inches (272 mm) shorter than the 1960 model; the new car was also 155 lb (70 kg) lighter. The B-body Pontiacs discarded the cruciform frame in favor of a new perimeter frame without a central X-member.

The market rebounded encouragingly in 1962, as did Pontiac sales. Thanks in part to a deft facelift by Jack Humbert, the 1962 Pontiacs sold exceptionally well. Market share swelled to more than 7.5% and the division claimed the coveted number-three spot in overall sales. It would retain that position until the 1970 model year.

As the longtime owner (1974-91) of a ’66 Bonneville convertible, I think you should have mentioned that the 1965 redesign increased the proportions of the larger full-size cars (i.e., the Star Chief and Bonneville series except for the Safari wagons) to about those of 1959-60: Mine had a 124-inch wheelbase and a total length of 222 inches.

(Also, the ’66 in the photo has the BONNEVILLE grille lettering much to close to the center of the car for some reason; the first photo returned by a Google Images search of “1966 bonneville” shows the correct placement.)

Thanks for all the detail about the pre-Wide Track period, as well as the reference list.

That’s a reasonable note. I had wanted to mention the larger dimensions, but there wasn’t an easy way to include it in the text; I added it to the caption.

I have no explanation of the offset grille lettering on the red Bonneville. Maybe it was missing when the owner got the car, and he or she wasn’t sure exactly where it was supposed to go — I don’t know.

To say that there was no reason for Pontiac’s existence is a very shallow statement. The Pontiac Motor division of General Motors designed and built some of the most Iconic car of the 20th Century. There contribution to both Stock Car Racing and drag racing was no small accomplishment. The beautiful full size cars of the late 50s and all through the 60s were some of the most beautiful cars ever sold by GM. The Pontiac was a step up for blue collar workers who couldn’t afford a Buick or Cadillac. And all this is not to mention such popular Icons as the GTO or Fire Bird (Trans Am). Give me a Break!
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“Shallow” is an interesting choice of words in this context because, without wanting to seem more than usually argumentative, the qualities that distinguished a Pontiac from a Chevrolet or an Oldsmobile were exactly that. Badge prestige is always an ephemeral quality, especially in the narrow realm of the GM brand ladder, and so are styling and the mechanical advantages, if any, a Pontiac had over its contemporary Chevrolet rival. Ephemeral doesn’t mean it doesn’t count — obviously, people will go to some trouble and expense to get their car or their phone in a particular color, so it has a definable value — but it is a question of degree or taste rather than something you can point to and say, “This is clearly better than that.”

However I am still having the problem with the text formatting on the last page. I read your articles on my iPhone so I thought it was just the iPhone. It formats correctly on my iPad. I have had the same problem with some other recent articles, always on the last page. But I keep coming back anyway.

Oh, and in the photo caption where you detail the expansion on Pontiac’s V8 there is some apparently unintended repetititon.

My apologizes for the formatting problem. What appears to be happening is that certain browsers are objecting to the text links; some browsers refuse to wrap text that looks like a link, which is breaking the margin. I managed to fix it in IE, and I tinkered with it a little more just now, but the smaller window of mobile phone browsers may still present problems. I just found out about this last night, so I haven’t had a chance to address it in previous articles.

Nice article. One question – I had always heard that the X-frame was pretty stiff. Given that GM sold large numbers of four-door hardtops, I would think that a willowy frame would have allowed those bodies to quickly twist themselves apart.

The big problem with the X-frame was lack of side-impact protection. I’ve seen Ford ads from 1961 comparing the full-size Ford frame with the X-frame (without ever mentioning Chevrolet or GM) to make an obvious point regarding safety.

What is interesting about Pontiac is that, after about 1963 or so, it achieved success in spite of, not because of, GM’s top management. GM’s executive team fought Pontiac management on several key issues, even as the division was setting sales records and had a great reputation. In some respects, Pontiac was the BMW of the 1960s, in terms of image and the demographics of customers who bought the cars.

The X-frame itself was relatively stiff — not quite as stiff as a full ladder frame with X-member, but stiffer than the later perimeter frames. The big problem was that it didn’t do a very good job of preventing the body itself from twisting, which a big hardtop generally does very readily.

Pontiac’s [i]pitch[/i] in the sixties was very similar to the one BMW adopted later, and when Pontiac returned to that message in the eighties and nineties, they positioned themselves pretty deliberately as the poor man’s BMW. Pontiac’s [i]demographics[/i] were not that much like BMW’s; they skewed a good deal younger. Both were selling sportiness, but a lot of customers bought BMWs because they were expensive and prestigious, much more so than with Pontiac.

The late fifties really marked the beginning of GM’s efforts to exert tighter corporate control on the divisions. The senior compacts were really the first salvo, and I think the corporation was frustrated that those cars ended up having so little in common. Senior management kept pushing for more commonality, and more control over divisional operations. One of my sources said that in 1960, a general manager might have to meet with senior management once a month to check in; in 1969, they had to attend corporate meetings at least once or twice a week.

Even in the early fifties, GM senior management lived in mortal fear of the feds. Their primary fear was the anti-trust division of the Justice Department — they were terrified of being split up, or being forced to spin off Chevrolet — but they also feared federal regulation. There were already growing safety and emissions lobbies in the early sixties, even before Ralph Nader, and GM was afraid of doing anything that might appear provocative or irresponsible. Pontiac’s success put them in an awkward position. They were pleased about the increased sales, but some senior executives felt that Pontiac was putting the whole corporation at risk with childish stunts. They kept wishing there was a way to maintain the sales while taking a quieter, more dignified, less provocative approach.

Were the wide track cars actually made up of wider axles and front suspensions. I remember pontiac wheels had a deeper dish than chevy wheels, but would bolt right on an impala to make it a wide track, too.

I’ve never compared the axle tube length of a ’59 Pontiac to a ’59 Chevrolet, but I believe the reason for the deeper-dish wheels was to accommodate the bigger brake drums; Pontiac expanded the width of its drums by an inch in 1959. The wheels probably accounted for a portion of the track increase, but I don’t think all of it. Keep in mind that both front and rear track width increased about 5 inches from 1958.

The whole axle assy. is different than the Chevy. The housing is larger and the third member is bigger with it’s ring gear at 9.3 inches it shares with Oldsmobile. The axle assy. is a three link attachment When the 61-62 model Pontiac came out and being downsized in length as well as width the axels were shortened, but the third member remained the same. 1961-62 along with 63-64 are four link attachments. 59-60 cars have a rear track of 64 inches. The downsized 61-62 Pontiac’s rear track is 62.5 inches. 1963-63 Pontiac’s return to 64 inches.
Going back, the 57 is the beginning of this large 9.3″ third member, but the 57 has a 27 spline axle and a narrow 58″ track. The 58 cars get a 58″ track but the axels are now 32 splines and for the first time Safety Track was offered. So, the 58-1964 third members are interchangeable.
As far as track increases we have 1958 at 58 inches front and rear. 1959 has front at 63 7/8″ rear at 64″. 1960 front at 64″ rear 64″. 1961-62 at front and rear both at 62.5 ” and 63-64 cars at 64″ front and rear track.

I’ve always wished I could have been alive in 1960-61 when American car design rationalized so quickly and completely. Probably nothing demonstrated the shift more completely than the Lincoln Continental.

Imagine how the new cars looked on roadways still full of fins, chrome, and two- (and three-) toned leviathans.

Well, aside from Harley Earl, who was on his way out or gone when the 1961 cars were designed, I think a lot of American stylists regarded the fins, chrome frosting, and jukebox excess with varying levels of disgust and had gone that way mainly because the sales and marketing people had insisted that’s what the public wanted. The recession and generally dismal sales of 1958 gave the naysayers the leverage to steer things in a different direction. (“If that was what people wanted before, it sure isn’t now.”) Had the ’58 cars sold really well, the shift probably would have taken a little longer, but it probably helped that the stylists were very willing, even eager, to tidy things up aesthetically.

Understood; however my impression is that at the time fashion ruled supreme and a change was in the offing no matter what the status quo was. Just as with clothing fashion–whatever’s in style now will be out of style tomorrow. Fascinating topic though! Fords were totally changed every year from 1956 through 1961 IIRC. Chevies just one year behind (their 59 and 60 were similar)..

While designers do have to be cognizant of fashion trends, it’s also important to remember that the logistics of automotive production mean that stylists are always working about three years ahead, so they also need to anticipate and to some extent dictate public tastes. (The gap is sometimes shorter than three years — as discussed elsewhere, the ’59 GM cars were redone very hastily in mid-1956 in reaction to the not-yet-released ’57 Chryslers — but three years was the norm and anything shorter than that was both difficult and expensive.) Occasionally, the stylists are caught off guard, which is what happened with the Pontiac split grille: The 1960 grille was designed, signed off on, and handed off to production engineering before the ’59s went on sale.

This is why the sales force was often able to push for more chrome, bigger fins, etc. — since the automaker was trying to look three years ahead, a lot came down to the sale organization’s professional judgment about what they thought would sell.

The general pattern for mass-market American cars of this period was to retain the same basic body shell for two or three at a time with a visible but structurally superficial restyling every year. Again, there were exceptions to that; for example, Chrysler’s big Imperial retained the same shell for longer while GM’s ’58 cars were a one-year body. The latter was very expensive and was again dictated by the last-minute redesigns of the ’59 cars (which were originally supposed to be facelifts of the ’58 shell).

Non-U.S. and later cars tended to have longer life cycles in part because development costs in general have gone up and in part because unitized construction costs more to tool and thus requires a longer amortization period.

It’s important to keep in mind that by the fifties, Earl was not a designer in any active sense and hadn’t been for many years. He was a corporate vice president responsible for a bunch of different individual studios and a staff that I think was bigger than all the design staffs of all the other contemporary American automakers put together. His role in the design process at that point was that of a high-level manager who comes in periodically to demand a little more of this and a little less of that or warn that he didn’t want to see a particular rendering ever again. He was like a movie producer as opposed to a director, an actor, or a composer: You would rarely seen any specific element that he personally contributed and the average viewer wouldn’t necessarily know what he did, but he nonetheless bore overall responsibility for what got made and what didn’t.

Virgil Exner Sr. eventually took on a comparable level of responsibility at Chrysler, but I think Exner retained had a more hands-on role (insofar as his health permitted) and Chrysler’s design staff was considerably smaller than GM’s. (The thing to remember when looking at GM in its heyday was that it was HUGE — as you went up the ranks, your scope of responsibility could expand from “managing a dozen or so people in a department” to running an operation the size of a small city.)

Style is by definition an ephemeral and transitory phenomenon. Every designer whose career isn’t cut unnaturally short for some reason has their share of hits and misses, some of which really only make sense in the context of their time.

Harley Earl’s lasting contribution, and what makes him stand out from his peers, is that he carved out a place for styling and the creative process in a corporate industry dominated by engineers (before the war), accountants, and (later) MBAs, most of whom are thoroughly convinced that any business operation can ultimately be reduced to a series of mathematical operations. Earl managed to outmaneuver, intimidate, and dazzle those people with a combination of politicking, showmanship, and consistent sales success. He made them recognize that what his staff did had value and that for best results, the bookkeepers, the engineers, and the efficiency experts needed to keep their hands off the process. That’s a pretty remarkable achievement considering that he was originally hired on a short-term consulting contract!

Earl established the automotive styling *organization* and for better or worse the products of that organization set the standard for about 50 years. While you can point to various specific examples where a rival beat GM to the punch with a specific feature or did better with a particular theme, they were responding to or hoping to put one over on GM designs. That was due in no small part to the fact that a great many of the American stylists of that period who went on to work elsewhere (including Virgil Exner or Frank Hershey) were veterans of the GM styling organization and carried that model with them.

So, while one could argue that the designs of, say, Bob Gregorie working with Edsel Ford were more tasteful or better realized, Harley Earl remains THE figure of American design. You might love him, you might hate him (and I think people who worked for him felt both, depending on the day), you might think him overrated, but he’s really difficult to ignore.

That you can come up with such reasoned, comprehensive, captivating–and above all well-written–replies virtually in real time sort of blows my mind. Just discovered your site last night but I can see I’ll be spending a lot of time here!

You state that the 1957 Bonneville was only available as a convertible. It is my recollection that fuel injection was available in 1957 on the Bonneville convertible (my friend had one, silver with silver leather interior) and on (of all things) their station wagon, which was probably a Safari but a Bonneville by a different name. So although the Bonneville model was only available as a convertible, in essence you could get the equivalent in a station wagon, but it carried the Safari name (the mid-50’s Safaris were 2-door and every bit as stylish as the Chevrolet Nomads as they were essentially the same car). And the 1959 Safari in Sunset Glow with matching tri-color interior was absolutely stunning, for a station wagon!

In 1955 the Safari was a short wheelbase wagon with StarChief trim appointments, and leather seated interior just like the StarChief.
This carried over for 1956 and 57, although late in the 1957 season a new wagon was added with all the appointments of the two door safari, it was called the Trans Continental.
The 57 Bonneville was only a convertible and all were fuel injected.
No other 1957 Pontiac model Pontiac could be ordered with fuel injection.
In 1958 Fuel Injection could be ordered on any Pontiac for the sum of around $500.00

As the second owner, my father was the original owner of a S/O 59 Catalina sport coupe, my dad ordered a 345 hp tri-power engine with a heavy duty Supra HydraMatic 4 speed with three gear sets.
Most people who have 1959 or 60 Pontiac’s that were ordered with Tri-Power received the 315HP for 59 or the 318hp for 1960. The difference is in the bottom end of the engine ( 4 bolt mains oil pump etc. and the cam plus the cylinder heads.
Our car was ordered from the zone office, and most dealers didn’t know about a 330 hp four barrel (NASCAR) engine or the 345HP Tri-Power engine used for NHRA drag racing.
When we picked up the car at a dealer my dad chose and did the walk around. We found in the trunk the two third members for drag racing we had ordered, but also a solid lifter cam and lifters to make the engine a 345HP car. You see in those days unlike Chevrolet, Pontiac could not sell a car with a solid lifter cam and warranty the car. The cam that was in the engine was the original Hydro cam #886 that was first used in the 285hp dual quad 1956 317″ engine.
FYI this Catalina, while ordered out of the L.A. zone office was not built in the South Gate Plant. The car was built in Mi. and railed to the west coast because the engine was hand built and balanced in the Pontiac tool room like all NASCAR engines were.

FYI, the 1959 389″ 2bbl@ 280hp, the 389″ 4BBL @ 300hp and the 389″ Tri-power @ 315HP all used the very good #472 Hydraulic cam. In the 1960 engine the same cam was used but the HP increased on all three engines by 3HP and this was due to a bump in compression by .25. All these hydraulic cam engines above are for the HydraMatic cars.

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